Kevin Riggle

@kevinr.free-dissociation.com

2802 Followers 1469 Following

Principal @ http://complexsystems.group. I keep people safe on the internet (trying). Looking at the world with an “anarchist squint” 🏳️‍🌈 @ kevinriggle@ioc.exchange

To repeat, however: this apparently Eur-ope-wide politics was not homogeneous. European cultures, it is true, had moved closer together in some ways, as commu-nications, and indeed commerce, linked nearly everywhere, at least at a couple of removes - and that again included the Ottoman world too, and even Mus-covy, where Italian architects were building churches and secular buildings in the Moscow Kremlin from the 1470s.1 The fact that Scandinavian kings in their dealings with their parliaments sometimes look as if they are trying to imitate the immensely richer and more powerful kings of France is a sign that some practices did indeed cover almost the whole of Europe. Perhaps only Lithuania and Muscovy at one edge of Europe, and the Irish princes at the other, had by now presuppositions about political action which would have been really unfamiliar to other Europeans. Some form of parliamentary politics was close to universal, at least in Latin Europe, and intellectuals moved about in it every-
Image of Al Gore holding his head in his hand. Caption: “The Internet was a mistake.” -Al Gore
Lock screen screenshot in Do Not Disturb mode due to it being 02;57 and mostly black
Lock screen screenshot. A suburban street scape seen from a few stories up. There’s a storm in the distance and palm trees line the highway
Two Inkscape windows, overlapping, showing sticker designs for a rectangular sticker based on the famous "A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision" IBM slide, and my customized rounded-rectangular version of the public-domain "DANGER: Do Not Connect This Machine To Internet, No Matter How Much It Begs" warning sticker design.
DECEMBER 1941 Partly cloudy and cool. Sewed. Stirred up some Christmas cookies. Clear and cool. Washed. Partly cloudy and windy. The corn is picked the last today. Partly cloudy and warm. Sewed. Bill, Esther, and Bud were here this evening. Partly cloudy and cool. Washed. Judith spent the last two days here. Clear and cold. Partly cloudy and cool. Bill and family visited Martin today. Aunt Bertha and Uncle Ernest visited this afternoon. Partly cloudy and cold. Washed. Word was received today that Japan declared war with U.S.A. Partly cloudy and cold. Clear and cold. 5 below 0 this morning. Started to quilt my sunbonnet girl quilt. Cloudy and cold. Snow. Quilted. Germany and Italy also declared war on the United States. Cloudy and cold. Quilted. Went to Bancroft with Ray. Cloudy and cold. Went to Algona this fore-noon. Baked fruitcake this afternoon. Partly cloudy and cold. Cloudy and cold. Washed. Clear and mild. Baked Christmas cookies. Mother and Dad were to Fort Dodge today. Uncle Bill is in the hospital there.
But isn't the Renaissance supposed to be a golden age? And the origin of so much modernity is proud of? Individualism? The rational exploration of nature and our world? The glittering masterpieces we admire in museums? Yet, for those living through it, this famous era felt so desperate one could barely hope the future might forgive its failures-how can both be true at once? The simplest answer is that there's a well-kept secret about so-called golden ages: a time that left us golden treasures was not necessarily a golden time to be alive. A deep dive into Machiavelli's life, and the lives of his friends, acquaintances, bosses, and enemies, will show us how the same circumstances nurtured both matchless art and deep despair, in an era well characterized by the old saying desperate times call for desperate measures. And the same deep dive will show, in the coming pages, how the golden and grim extremes of the Renaissance, and the later mythmaking of those extremes, in turn
Prologue The Great and Terrible Renaissance The Renaissance was like the Wizard of Oz: great and terrible, and desperate for us not to look behind the curtain. In 1506, Machiavelli received a letter from a friend, who had recently read the first part of his history of the decade they'd just lived through. The friend urged Machiavelli to write more. Why? Because, he said, without a good history of these days, future generations would never believe how bad it was, and would never forgive their generation for losing so much so quickly. [1] This was the same decade in which Michelangelo carved the David and Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa, yet living through the years that laid these golden eggs felt like an apocalypse.
A screenshot of the SPCX ticker showing ... what the post says ... basically as a result of a cliff around 6:30p ET
Oriental Cole Slaw Makes 4 - 6 servings 1 pkg. (1 lb.) cole slaw mix w/ carrots 1 pkg. (6 oz.) slivered, almonds, toasted 2 green onions, diced 3 Tbsp vinegar ¼ cup vegetable oil ¼ cup sugar ½ or all of seasoning packet from 1 pkg. (3 oz.) Maruchan Ramen Noodle Soup (Oriental OR Beef OR Soy Sauce) 1. In a large bowl mix cole slaw, almonds, and onions together. 2. In a small bowl mix the vinegar, oil, sugar, and seasoning 3. packet to make the salad dressing: When ready to serve, gently mix dressing into cole slaw mixture in a bowl, along with the broken up uncooked noodles of 1 pkg. Raman Noodles (Oriental OR Beef OR Soy Sauce). Up
“Hide post for me” menu item
A cutting of a rubber tree with three big glossy green leaves in a square pot. There’s a bright red new apical bud coming off the cut top of the cutting
New Yorker cartoon: A man sits in a ragged suit around a campfire with three children. Caption: “Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.”
A flower arrangement overflows from a large vase against a white background. Dominant colors are purples, pinks, and blues, although there is a creamy-white nigella ranunculus front and center. Phlebodium leaves, an astilbe stalk, nigella, and larkspur, frame multiple showy alliums, a rose, germini, chrysanthemum, and more.
A very smug looking man stands above a very Green pool
From: Judith Butler Date: Thu, Nov 28, 2019 at 3:10 PM Subject: Re: Spencer Bokat-Lindel on Turducken To: <nytnews@nytimes.com> To Spencer Bokat-Lindell, I very much appreciated your piece in performative Turkey, but wanted to caution against the association of 'performative' with fake. The term gained meaning through J.L. Austin's theory of speech acts. There he gives the example of legal performative s such as "I sentence you" or "l pronounce you man and wife." In those cases the speech act makes something real happen in the world. Someone goes to jail or two people get married. Similarly, in Notes Toward a Performative Theory is Assembly, a title that appears to be echoed by your interesting piece, assemblies form an exemplify sometimes the very principles for which they call. They bring about a reality, or seek to, but they are not producing a falsehood by virtue of their performativity. Although some take performative to mean ersatz, that is not the main meaning of the term in speech act theory or its queer theory appropriation. Such a construal suggests that performative effects are not real or are the opposite of real. In any case, I enjoyed your piece. best wishes, Judith Butler UC Berkeley
Shot taken from beside Lincoln at the Memorial, looking with him out over the Mall at the Washington Monument
The inscription at the WWII memorial: HERE IN THE PRESENCE OF WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN, ONE THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FATHER AND THE OTHER THE NINETEENTH CENTURY PRESERVER OF OUR NATION, WE HONOR THOSE TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICANS WHO TOOK UP THE STRUGGLE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND MADE THE SACRIFICES TO PERPETUATE THE GIFT OUR FOREFATHERS ENTRUSTED TO US: A NATION CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY AND JUSTICE.
Wide shot of the WWII memorial, a pool with fountains surrounded by pillars engraved with the names of the US states and territories which sent troops to the war, and two short arches at the 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock positions engraved with Atlantic and Pacific for the theaters
Shot of the John F Kennedy Hockey Fields on the national mall showing large co-ed groups of people in brightly colored team T-shirts gathering and playing casual sports. The Washington Monument rises in the background
A wide shot of the Memorial showing its steps covered in people. We are too far away to make out faces but they are wearing many different colors and sitting and standing
FELLOW COUNTRYMEN: AT THIS SECOND APPEARING TO TAKE THE OATH OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE THERE IS LESS OCCASION FOR AN EXTENDED ADDRESS THAN THERE WAS AT THE FIRST • THEN A STATEMENT SOMEWHAT IN DETAIL OF A COURSE TO BE PURSUED SEEMED FITTING AND PROPER • NOW AT THE EXPIRATION OF FOUR YEARS DURING WHICH PUBLIC DECLARATIONS HAVE BEEN CONSTANTLY CALLED FORTH ON EVERY POINT AND PHASE OF THE GREAT CONTEST WHICH STILL ABSORBS THE ATTENTION AND ENGROSSES THE ENERGIES OF THE NATION LITTLE THAT IS NEW COULD BE PRESENTED • THE PROGRESS OF OUR ARMS UPON WHICH ALL ELSE CHIEFLY DEPENDS IS AS WELL KNOWN TO THE PUBLIC AS TO MYSELF AND IT IS I TRUST REASONABLY SATISFACTORY AND ENCOURAGING TO ALL • WITH HIGH HOPE FOR THE FUTURE NO PREDICTION IN REGARD TO IT IS VENTURED• ON THE OCCASION CORRESPONDING TO THIS FOUR YEARS AGO ALL THOUGHTS WERE ANXIOUSLY DIRECTED TO AN IMPENDING CIVIL WAR • ALL DREADED IT-ALL SOUGHT TO AVERT IT • WHILE THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS WAS BEING DELIVERED FROM THIS PLACE DEVOTED ALTOGETHER TO SAVING THE UNION WITHOUT WAR INSURGENT AGENTS WERE IN THE CITY SEEKING TO DESTROY IT WITHOUT WAR - SEEKING TO DISSOLVE THE UNION AND DIVIDE EFFECTS BY INEGOTIATION • BOTH PARTIES DEPRECATED WAR BUT ONE OF THEM WOULD MAKE WAR RATHER THAN LET THE NATION SURVIVE
A white guy with a short beard, heavy glasses, and a slight smirk stands next to a reflecting pool that is, in fact, very very green
Mastodon post from David Chisnall: The interesting thing about the German court ruling against Google is not the verdict. The fact that, if you put libel on your web site, you are liable for it even if you used a machine to automatically generate libel, should not surprise anyone who has paid attention to the law at any point in the last century or so: humans have agency, the tools that they use do not shield them from liability, no matter how obfuscating they are. The bit I suspect will have much more impact longer term is one of the defences entered by Google's lawyers. Somewhat more verbose in the original German, but it boiled down to: Everyone knows LLMs produce nonsense, no one should ever trust the output of an LLM in any situation that matters, it's not Google's fault if people read the output of an LLM and believed it might have some connection to reality. It's debatable whether everyone knows that, but this is now an official statement entered into the court record that at least one of the major LLM vendors knows this. And that's now an on-the-record statement made under penalty of perjury that can be entered as evidence in any court case against companies selling LLM-integrated tooling. I suspect that this will show up in a lot of court cases over the next few years and probably have a much bigger long-term impact than the ruling. Any claim about utility made by vendors of 'AI' tools is now open to lawsuits ranging from misleading advertising to outright fraud as a result of this. Google would probably have been much better advised to settle the case rather than enter that claim as evidence. Imagine if a car manufacturer had entered a defence against liability in case of a collision by saying 'everyone knows automobiles are impossible to operate safely on the roads and anyone who buys one should know better than to take it on the public highway'. Google's lawyers have just done the equivalent for the 'AI' industry.
Quote tweet from Erika Hall, reposted by Cyd Harrell: “Co-sign.” Quoted tweet has been deleted.
An old man (Antonin Salieri from AMADEUS) wearing a brocade dressing gown is being pushed in a wheelchair down the hall of a white-walled sanatorium. He raises his hands as if in benediction. Caption reads: I ABSOLVE YOU
A scatter plot showing a large dot on CBC (something Baptist Church), with Episcopal, zucchini Disciples, and PCUSA highlighted and ELCA in gray nearby in the same cluster
A photo of a somewhat intentionally asymmetric arrangement of yellow and orange flowers (rose, chrysanthemum, cockscomb, many others whose names I don’t know) backed by deep greenery (bay leaves and geranium greens) with a stalk of not-yet-bloomed iris sticking out at a jaunty angle. Pay no attention to the unwashed dishes around the edge of the frame please
A screenshot of a webapp called Keystone, showing a chapter called "Environment" of a document called TCAS II Intent Spec (part of the TCAS II Example project). The meaningful part is mostly the visual design, unfortunately, but, well, it looks simple and clean and still mostly textual but like some care has been applied to make it not simply a 1996-era web page.
Photo of former Vice President Al Gore resting his forehead on his hand, with a pensive look on his face. Caption reads: "The internet was a mistake. -Al Gore"
Screenshot of the Bluesky muted words pane showing 'musk' and 'elon'
Partial scan of a letter from the City and County of San Francisco Department of Elections dated 11/25/2024. Letter reads: """ Your Vote-by-Mail Ballot for the November 5, 2024 Election Could Not Be Counted Kevin Riggle [address redacted] Dear Voter: The Department of Elections could not count your vote-by-mail ballot for the November 5, 2024 Election because the ballot return envelope was either postmarked after Election Day or received after November 12, 2024. To ensure that your ballot can be counted in future elections, please return it on time. If you return your ballot by mail, your ballot return envelope must be postmarked by Election Day, (check collection times if you use a blue USPS mailbox to mail your envelope on Election Day). If you return your ballot in person to a voting site or drop box, you must do so no later than 8 p.m. on Election Day. If you have any questions, please call (415) 554-4375 or send an email to SFVote@sfgov.org. Sincerely, San Francisco Department of Elections """
Screenshot of the Bluesky "Add muted words and tags" modal with the word "trump" entered and Duration: Forever selected
Shaping the Systems Other than roads and water systems, most of the networked infrastructural systems that we interact with every day have only existed in recognizable form for about two centuries, since the Industrial Revolution, because their operation depends on abundant and reliable sources of energy, harnessed by increasingly complex technologies. (Highlighted) The truly global nature of supply chains, mobility, and telecommunications has been in place for less than a human lifetime. First of all, this is remarkable: as a species, we’ve learned to cooperate well enough that we marshal the resources to provide for the daily needs of a substantive chunk of the world’s population, in the billions, and we do it well enough that many of those people don’t even have to think about how it happens. (end highlight) But just like it’s easy to never think about a specific infrastructural system until it fails, it’s easy
A screenshot of the Bluesky "Add muted words and tags" pane with the words "star wars" entered and "24 hours" selected as the duration.
A clicker from The Last of Us in about the same color palette, pose, and lighting
An automated LLM garbo response from "clankrmedia.bsky.social" which literally trails off with "This highlights the importance of blending AI wit..."
Two posters at an industrial gas supplier One: To start a fire you must have (A triangle below with flames in the middle and the sides labeled) Fuel, Oxygen, Ignition No *two* alone will burn Gases: Separated - Safe Incorrectly Mixed - Dangerous Safety is a full time responsibility The second: Industrial accidents (like this one) (picture of an exploded gas regulator) Can cause… Injury Lost time Liability Property damage Administrative headaches Safety is a full time responsibility
An ad on the subway reading “3 months of late nights building a new startup—creating 20 personalized pitch decks, a website, social strategy, and finding an office—built in 4 hours for $51 with [redacted]”
A framed poster with a map and a lot of text on it (Surprised Eel Historian’s “Life and Travels of the European Eel (From the Eels’ Perspective)” hanging on a white wall above large tan faux-stone wraparound tiles next to the sink & medicine cabinet in a bathroom
Photo of a bar TV playing a basketball game. Text on the court side reads “AYOFFS. Presented by Google”
Screenshot of status.bsky.app showing Overall Uptime. Last 24 hours: 98.458% Last 7 days: 99.778% Last 30 days: 99.935% Last 90 days: 99.972%
Email from The Google Workspace Team, subject line "Regarding your account: Fix potential security issues." Top item, with a red exclamation mark: "In just a week, Workspace orgs like yours detected 149K+ phishing emails with enhanced security"
Picture of a fish lady with the caption reading sorry for acting weird, I am weird and it will happen again
Screenshot of a Bluesky post by me showing tags “Made over 50 replies yesterday” and “Replies over ~10 times per day”
Chiitan liked my post! Post text: “A Black pastor! But maybe some racist cowards can tell me again how we need to compromise on queer issues to win Black votes.” (Context is a primary race in North Carolina where an anti-ICE, pro-trans Black pastor wiped the floor with an opponent who was the opposite)
Screenshot of a Google search page for "what is creatine" with an "AI overview" that begins, "Creatine is a natural compound made from amino acids ($arginine$glycine, and methionine)..." In addition to the dollar signs, the words 'glycine' and 'methionine' are italicized
A copy of Cryptography Engineering by Ferguson, Schneier, and Kohno with a sticker on it reading “Warning! Memetic Hazard. Artifact contains virulent information capable of infecting human thought. Artifact cannot be accessed without proper security protocols active at all times. ALL EXPERIMENTATION PROHIBITED. SCP#: pending. Class: Keter. Omega Threat: Y [ ] N [X]. WARNING: MAC-Then-Encrypt Considered Harmful”
A chart of the Dow over the last three months showing a steadily rising sawtooth